All posts tagged ‘Rockets’

Over at the GeekDad Community, Rick Schertle is looking for suggestions on modding a compressed air rocket. The project, which you can find posted on the Make blog, is a fun one and one my family built a couple of years ago. Rick’s thinking about adding a parachute, glider or helicopter recover system. Have a suggestion? Head over to the GeekDad Community and leave a comment!

ATREX stands for Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment and consisted of 5 sounding rockets all launched within 5 minutes from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast. The rockets released an environmentally safe chemical tracer into the far edge of the upper atmosphere, at the interface to space, to study a jet-stream that exists at those altitudes. The amazing part of this experiment was the visibility of the tracer clouds: I could see them, clearly, from my house between Washington, DC and Baltimore this morning, and they may have been visible as far west as West Virginia. It isn’t often I get to report firsthand on missions, and to see an atmospheric experiment of that magnitude was thrilling. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t looking at clouds in the normal cloud layer but at a man-made cloud 80 kilometers above the normal cloud layers — a visualization of the edge of space.

As I write this, the launches have just happened so pictures from the experiment and launches are not available yet and video has become available as I write and NASA is reporting some information via Facebook and Twitter as fast as they can and I am sure some more impressive photos and videos will be available soon.

The United States’ government-run manned spaceflight program was given a one-two punch in the last year. In August 2009, the Augustine Commission (appointed by the Obama administration) recommended that NASA look to commercial space operators to take on the burden of ferrying mission commanders, scientists and specialists up to the International Space Station. Then in February 2010, the administration’s 2011 budget reflected that charge.

If Congress goes through with the budget proposal (and that is a big if), NASA will stop work on the Constellation program, including the in-development Orion module and Ares rocket and focus instead on a new heavy-lift vehicle and new space-related technologies. The move will pave the way for companies like SpaceX to take up the helm for low-Earth orbit (LEO) human spaceflight.

And, while other fledgling spaceflight companies like Virgin Galactic are not preparing to send people all the way up to the space station, they and other commercial companies are also making waves.

So what will a job market for the aspiring space junkie look like in 20 to 30 years? For a long time, the single goal for kids that were obsessed with spaceflight was to become an astronaut. Now, it looks like that job title will have some competition. Here are 10 non-scientist jobs I believe youngsters should start to prepare for:

LEO pilot (eventually, lunar transfer pilot)

Nerves of steel, excellent piloting skills (atmosphere and LEO). Must be able to calm tourists and provide comedic banter during flight. Virgin Galactic has the lock on this job category for the next few years. But Jeff Bezos is doing something out there in the Texan desert.

Driving home the other day, I saw an enormous pile of Christmas trees at the park. City workers take the old trees and drop them in local lakes to form a habitat for fish. I thought to myself, driving past this mountain of fir and spruce, there has to be a better use for old trees. And it turns out there is.

As the video above shows, with 33 rocket engines, a little backyard engineering and a car battery, a Christmas tree is able to achieve a somewhat impressive launch. We’re not condoning this type of behavior, we are big believers of the Mythbusters credo, “Don’t try this at home.” Still, I never thought I’d see a Christmas tree launched 100 feet in the air!

So, what do you do after you set a world record by building and launching a nearly-four-story model rocket?

If you’re Steve Eves, you set your sights even higher: The Northeast Ohio guy who crafted a 1/10th scale Saturn V and sent it soaring in April is working on a second, more complex rocket designed to outfly his first one.

According to this article in The (Canton) Repository, Eves’ next project is a model of the Saturn 1B, used during the Apollo spacecraft testing years and later for the manned Skylab flights. This time around, though, Eves is aiming for another level of accuracy and creating a two-stage rocket, just like the real thing, as opposed to his single-stage Saturn V. The extra boost could push the 1B twice as high as the V, which hit 4,441 feet.

And here’s his great answer to why he’s doing it – “What’s the fun of doing something easy?”

Attention East Coast dads: this Tuesday night is your chance to wow the kids with something they’ve probably never seen before — and it won’t cost you a dime. NASA is scheduled to conduct an extremely rare rocket launch from Virginia’s Wallops Island Flight Facility sometime between 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm, Tuesday night. UPDATE: The launch has been postponed due to inclement weather until Thursday, May 7, between 8:00 and 11:00pm EDT.

This particular rocket, a Minotaur I, is noteworthy for the brilliant intensity of the fire it gives off. NASA claims that, conditions permitting, the rocket could be visible up to 800 miles away, which puts it in viewing range of the entire U.S. Eastern seaboard.

Should weather conditions prohibit the launch on Tuesday night, NASA intends to keep trying each night up through this Saturday. The best way to find out if and when the launch is going forward is to follow the NASA Wallops Twitter account.

If you manage to catch the launch on film, be sure submit your pics to the GeekDad Flickr pool! And don’t forget to tag your pics with “minotaur” so they’ll be easy to find.

It’s the kind of story that makes you ask yourself, "How big does a model rocket have to be before it stops being a model and becomes real?" Also, if you’re anything like me, it makes you really want to rearrange your schedule so you can watch the 8,000 pounds of thrust take it into the air.

If all goes well, this coming Saturday, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the dream of a man named Steve Eves will be realized. Eves has created, at great expense of both money and time, a 1-10 ratio scale model of the Saturn V rocket that took the Apollo astronauts to the moon. If successful, Eves will enter the record books for launching the largest-ever model rocket. He will also simultaneously fulfill a longtime dream of his and create an awesomely huge spectacle for all those watching.

This is an absolutely enormous rocket, standing 36 feet tall and weighing at least 1,700 pounds. It’s big enough that, according to this awesome article about Eves and his quest to build the rocket, a spectator asked him where the astronaut was going to sit. The propulsion piece of the rocket is so heavy it will have four parachutes attached so it will, hopefully, land without sustaining damage. If it weren’t made to look like a Saturn V, there are few people outside of the world of high-powered model rocketry who would call it a "model." For my money, this is a realrocket.

Price, Maryland, is a rural spot only about two hours from my home, so I’m awfully tempted to try to take my kids to watch the launch. If I do, I will of course post pictures to GeekDad.

The launch schedule for remaining two Space Shuttle launches in 2008 has been changed. The adjustments took place once Tropical Storm Hanna had moved beyond the Kennedy Space Center. STS-125, Shuttle Atlantis’ mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, is now planned for October 10, 2008. Shuttle Endeavor’s STS-126 mission to resupply the International Space Station is now targeted for November 12. 2008.

Shuttle Atlantis completed it’s long, slow journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A on Thursday, and was secured to the pad at 3:52 p.m. EDT. Live coverage of this rare night launch will be broadcast on NASA Television, beginning at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Thurs. Oct 9. The new launch time now slated for approx. 12:33 a.m. EDT on Oct. 10, 2008.

Shuttle Endeavor will be carrying a reusable logistics module to the International Space Station when it launches in November. It will hold supplies and equipment, including additional crew quarters, a second treadmill, equipment for the regenerative life support system and spare hardware. Barring complications, the STS-126 mission is scheduled to last 15 days. It will be the 27th Shuttle mission to the ISS.

In my continuing quest to see every aerospace related attraction across the country (as my poor wife can wearily testify) the family and I recently visited Space Center Houston, the official visitor’s center for the Johnson Space Center. If you have just emerged from a 50-year stint in cryogenic suspension, the Johnson Space Center is the place where astronauts receive the bulk of their training, and is the location of Mission Control for all of NASA’s manned space operations.

The first thing you notice upon entering Space Center Houston is the noise level. The reason for the noise is that just beyond the entrance doors is a huge child’s play area. Daredevil Island has minor stunt-type attractions for the older kids, including a bungee harness, an obstacle course, and a trapeze with a crash pad underneath. For the younger ones, the Kid’s Space Place is the largest kid-sized Habitrail-like structure I have ever seen. (If it were not for the rockets and foam meteors decorating the framework, I would swear I was in the world’s largest fast-food restaurant.)

Once you get past the entrance area, you find more "traditional" NASA fare. There are films and simulators and artifacts. There is a slice of moon rock you can touch. There is an interior mock-up of the Space Shuttle and, of course, the obligatory Gift Shop. It all culminates with two tram tours. The "Red Tour " goes to the Astronaut Training Facility, and the Blue Tour goes to Mission Control. Both tours stop at the Saturn V facility, where one of the three remaining Apollo Moon Rockets resides.

Space Center Houston is a self-supporting, non-profit organization. They do not receive funding from NASA or any other governmental source. This means, of course, that it is not cheap. Parking is $4.00, and basic admission is $18.95 for adults and $14.95 for children, age 4-11. If you plan to visit more than once, the annual Family of Four Membership is the best bet at $79.95, which allows you to purchase add on tickets for $19.75.

For those who want the Full Monty of NASA experience, the Level 9 Tour goes behind the scenes in several exclusive areas of the complex. Tickets for these tours cost $79.95, the tour lasts 4-5 hours and is only available to those 14 years and older. Advanced reservations are required at least one day prior to visiting the center. Since neither of my young ones have reached that lofty age, we were unable to tour these areas on this particular trip. (Which provides me a convenient excuse to visit there again with adult-types later!)

If you have visited the Kennedy Space Center or the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, you may find the Space Center Houston visiting experience not quite as meaty. There are far fewer attractions than at the launch site in Florida, and there are far more aerospace artifacts on display in D.C. There is, however, something pretty cool about going behind the scenes of the Johnson Space Center with your kids. I had a blast showing them the actual Mission Control Room that I remember from watching the Apollo missions on TV with my Dad. The kids did have fun playing in the mind-numbing (did I mention loud?) children’s play areas. And, if nothing else, we always have the tradition of sharing some overpriced Space Dots Ice Cream…

Tickets go on sale this Monday, August 25, 2008 at 9:00 AM EDT to view the next launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center. The STS-125 mission will be the final mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. This rare night launch is scheduled for Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 1:34 AM EDT. Details for ticket purchases and important launch viewing information can be found at the Kennedy Space Center website, or by calling 321-449-4400.